I'm looking forward to welcoming my ghosts again.
They always come this time of year. They're not the haunting kind, except in the sense of how much I miss them. They come in peace and joy and general good cheer, the way I tend to remember them when they walked this Earth. I'm lucky in that way. Not everyone has such pleasant evocations of all of their ghosts when they come to visit.
They're not exclusive to this time of year, of course. They can — and do — visit whenever they want. You like to think that it's you summoning them — and sometimes it is — but just as often it's them worming or strolling or barreling their way into your brain whether it's exactly when you need them most or simply at a random moment when the perspective they offer is always welcome.
Much of the summoning happens during the holiday season, a time of year rich in the kind of stimuli that leads one to summon one's ghosts. It's the china that gets placed on the table, the ornament that gets placed on the tree, the candle that gets lit, the train that's set up in the living room, the recipe that has lasted generations and lives on once again.
Each is attached to a thread that stretches back to someone who has since passed on, so these simple acts of doing what we do during the holidays turn into journeys over the years across all the holidays, and you find yourself awash in memories that sometimes are a gentle bath and sometimes a raging flood.
There's a lot to see and hear. The chuckle of one, the belly laugh of another. One's dainty selection from the dessert tray of a single cookie pressed between the thumb and forefinger, another's hearty five-fingered grab. One with the white shirt and tie and jacket, always the white shirt and tie and jacket, another with a crisp dress and embroidered hankie. One bent over in front of the oven, checking the turkey or ham or slab of roast beef. Another stretched out on the floor, playing with all of the little ones.
And sometimes, if you tap deeply enough into that rich vein and let its ore pour out, they're suddenly there, as much as they can be there, all of the grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers and cousins and friends.
Tom Waits once sang about looking for the heart of Saturday night, another kind of time that is special to so many of us. And he found it, he said, in all of the Saturdays that came before. So it is with the holidays. Our ghosts come and remind us that the magic of these special days lies in all of the magic of all of these days that came before.
It's a gift these ghosts give us, to realize that these days exist on a continuum of days that came before, that we exist on a continuum of souls that came before, and that these days and each of us are enriched by everything that preceded us. And so our minds toggle between those thoughts of then and now.
It can be a lot to juggle. The holiday season is about a lot of things and one of them is balance. How do we balance our thoughts of the past, the realities of our present, and our aspirations for the future? How much relative importance do we grant our memories and our dreams?
I've already said a few hellos. The visits have already begun. And I'm more conscious than ever that someday I'll be the one coming around for a visit. That, hopefully, one of the young ones celebrating these holidays will find something evocative in a part of these festivities that makes them want to summon me.
I would welcome that.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
Welcome the ghosts that come to visit
5
0
17.12.2023
I'm looking forward to welcoming my ghosts again.
They always come this time of year. They're not the haunting kind, except in the sense of how much I miss them. They come in peace and joy and general good cheer, the way I tend to remember them when they walked this Earth. I'm lucky in that way. Not everyone has such pleasant evocations of all of their ghosts when they come to visit.
They're not exclusive to this time of year, of course. They can — and do — visit whenever they want. You like to think that it's you summoning them — and sometimes it is — but just as often it's them worming or strolling or barreling their way into your brain whether it's exactly when you need them most or simply at a random moment when the perspective they offer is always welcome.
Much of the summoning happens during the holiday season, a time of year rich in the kind of stimuli that leads one to........
© Newsday
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Donald Low
Mort Laitner
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Michael Kwet
